r more
colourless than usual with repressed excitement. "Jack!" he gasped,
"they're lowering a boat. _The pilot's going ashore._"

He remained with me now, sitting with his head on his hands. Suddenly a
shout of two or three voices from the water was answered by a hearty
cheer from the deck. By one impulse, Alister and I sprang to our feet
and gripped each other by the hand; and I do not believe there were any
two sailors on board who sped the parting pilot with more noise than we
two made in the cook's galley.

It was gloriously true. They had kept us both. But, though I have no
doubt the captain would have got rid of us if we had proved feckless, I
think our being allowed to remain was largely due to the fact that the
vessel had left Liverpool short of her full complement of hands. Trade
was good at the time, and one man who had joined had afterwards
deserted, and another youngster had been taken to hospital only the day
before we sailed. He had epileptic fits, and though the second mate
(whose chief quality seemed to be an impartial distrust of everybody but
himself, and a burning desire to trip up his fellow-creatures at their
weak points and jump upon them accordingly) expressed in very strong
language his wish that the captain had not sent the lad off, but had
kept him for him (the second mate) to cure, the crew seemed all of
opinion that there was no "shamming" about it, and that the epileptic
sailor-boy would only have fallen from one of the yards in a fit, and
given more trouble than his services were worth over picking him up.

The afternoon was far from being as fine as the morning had been. Each
time I turned my eyes that way it seemed to me that the grey sea was
looking drearier and more restless, but I stuck steadily to some
miscellaneous and very dirty work that I had been put to down below;
and, as the ship rolled more and more under me, as I ran unsteadily
about with buckets and the like, I began to wonder if this was the way
storms came, gradually on, and whether, if the ship went down to-night
"with all on board," I should find courage to fit my fate.

I was meditating gloomily on this subject, when I heard a shrill
whistle, and then a series of awful noises, at the sound of which every
man below left whatever he was at, and rushed on deck. I had read too
many accounts of shipwrecks not to know that the deck is the place to
make for, so I bolted with the rest, and caught sight of Alister flying
in